Pour in Place Concrete Landscape Edging - Fix It Up

Landscaping can make a huge difference in the look of your house. But if you believe no bed is complete without some type of edging, there are a lot of different edging materials to choose from. You can find many of them like brick, metal edging and concrete blocks at your local hardware store or home center.

But you can also get a custom concrete edge for about the same price. And you won’t have to do it yourself. Deco-Curb of Dallas installs a continuous piece of concrete around your landscaping, and you can even run your lawn mower over it.

Many contractors who install this concrete edging offer it in three different styles: mower style, slant style and curb style. The mower style is the most popular because it’s tiered so homeowners can mow over it. The curb style, which is square, is mainly used in commercial applications. If homeowners don’t like the color of concrete there are up to 30 different colors you can make the edging.

Once the homeowner has chosen a design and layout, the contractor marks the layout with spray-paint. Then they take a sod cutter and cut out a 10 inch wide path of grass to give the edging something to lay in.

The contractor will then level out the ground where the edging will be. To do that, they’ll use a shovel and tamp tool.

Contractors mix the concrete on location. This is where they’ll add color if the homeowner so chooses. Since there’s no steel reinforcement, the contractor will add some fiber mesh to the concrete to bond it together.

After the concrete mixes for about five minutes, they’ll start laying out the edging. To do that, they’ll use a curbing machine. Before they turn the machine on, they’ll put a slip form at the bottom of the machine that matches the style you selected. That’s how you get the different forms.

The curbing machine is basically an extruder. It compacts the concrete into place with a plunger, and then propels itself backwards.

Because it ends up in one continuous piece, there are no limitations to the number of contours you can make with the machine.

Contractors like to add a lot of curves. They believe they look better than straight lines.


As the machine starts shooting out the concrete, you may notice cracks in the edging. That’s normal and that’s also why someone else goes along behind the person running the machine to hand trowl the edging. This gets rid of the cracks and makes the surface nice and smooth.

The contractor will also use a knife to cut expansion joints in the edging so the concrete can expand and contract.